While the present invention is disclosed in the context of establishing ATM connection paths, it will be recognized that the problems addressed and the solutions provided by the present invention are also more generally applicable to other connection oriented networks.
Being a connection-oriented technology, ATM requires a connection establishment phase before user data exchange, and a connection release phase after completion of data exchange. The standard ATM connection process is based upon a hop-by-hop or switch-by-switch sequential threading connection setup scheme. A common approach used for decreasing end-to-end connection setup delay is to provision partial segments of connections a priori using virtual paths. However, capacity pre-allocated to these partial segments, called virtual path connections, are not shared across these segments. Ideally, although such an approach reduces sharing, it significantly reduces end-to-end connection setup delay. An attendant cost of the use of these virtual path connections is that higher network bandwidth and, thus, component costs are required. In view of the above, it would be highly desirable to achieve savings in bandwidth and resource costs while at the same time controlling setup delay.